


Path of Most Resistance

by tropester



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anachronisms, Bottom Severus Snape, Disturbing Themes, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape Friendship, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Slurs, communal babysitter snape, harry and draco are cute babies who don't insult each other's mums yet, why are there three tags for voldemort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-11-02 11:14:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20726708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tropester/pseuds/tropester
Summary: Severus’s choice to keep Lily’s friendship instead of following his Housemates caused many doors to close. With little support and barred from higher pursuits, he claws his way towards some semblance of a career. Meanwhile, Riddle becomes curious about the supposedly brilliant half-blood who refused his Mark.





	1. Chapter 1

“Welcome to Alkar’s Potions Emporium,” Severus uttered from behind the counter when the bells chimed, signalling a customer. He placed the jar of beaver eyes back in its rightful place—two shelves down, third slot from the right. “Emporium” was putting it generously, and saying it never settled well with him. The shop was bare-bones and hadn’t been in the black when he’d come on board.

He peered above the counter, and found himself straightening his stance, smoothing out his sleeves and work apron. The new customer was an arresting sight—handsome (unfairly so, Severus thought, but let his gaze linger anyway), blue-eyed, dark-haired, finely-dressed. Pale, but with a healthy pink flush in the right places. Very unlike his own uniform chalky complexion. 

_And young_. Well, younger than Severus anticipated. The people that tended to visit the shop were of Old Alkar’s age, and came mostly to either ask for a loan or a repayment of one.

“May I help you?” Severus prompted, when the stranger merely stood in the centre of the shop. 

Those shapely lips quirked, as if Severus had said something amusing. “Alex in?”

Severus took an embarrassingly long moment to realise that Alexander was his employer’s first name. Some apprentice he was. “Out for the foreseeable future,” he replied. Likely avoiding responsibility while spending the meagre profits of the shop on the brothel two towns over. “Care to leave a message?”

“That won’t be necessary,” the stranger said, his eyes coasting over the nearly-empty shelves and settling on the brewing station—_Severus’s_ brewing station—at the east corner behind the counter. “Social visit. That layabout refuses to tie his shoelaces on a good day, imagine my surprise when I hear he’s taken on an apprentice.” 

Severus wondered if he should take offence on behalf of his Mentor. Too much effort, he decided. He was fairly certain his own competence was being judged by mere association with said layabout, but there was little else he could do when literally _every_ competent Potions Mentor in the country had his name blacklisted from apprenticeship and higher study. But that’s what happened when you pissed off Lucius Malfoy and his friends. Although he and Lucius may be talking again now, it said quite a bit when the blacklisting remained in place. 

His face burned when he realised the man was staring at the poor state of the table and counters he’d claimed for himself. He’d not been given his own brewing station (had been told "grab a corner, I don’t care" when he’d brought it up), so he’d made one for himself, cleaning out all the disgusting, expired ingredients and organizing the remaining ones to clear some space. 

He was normally good at keeping it pristine, but he’d left it messy that morning, thinking it to be another inauspicious day. 

Before he could further humiliate himself by uttering the first vapid excuse that came to mind, the man said, sounding curious, “What offence did the dung beetles cause you?”

Severus stared, uncomprehending. “Offence?” he repeated. 

“They are lying pulverised on the table.”

“Oh.” He stared back at the strewn beetle parts and gave an awkward shrug. "You can extract about twenty percent more from them if you crush rather than slice them."

There was that quirk in his lips again. "So you’re saying slicing dung beetles for their fluids, a method popularised by Brewer Bragan and taught the world over, has been incorrect for half a century?"

Severus frowned, not quite liking the feeling that he was being laughed at. "I’m saying I’ve been crushing them and getting twenty percent more than when I slice the buggers." He tilted his chin at the apparatus beside the chopping board. "There’s a filtering step I do that does the trick. It’s an extra few minutes, but easy enough and ensures the results are pure."

"Show me."

Severus fixed him with a flat stare. "Will you be paying for the ingredients?"

The man approached and dropped five galleons on the counter. When Severus made to retrieve some change, he was stopped with a hand on his arm. "Consider the rest payment for your time."

"...Three galleons and five sickles to give you a dung beetle extraction demo?" he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. He was being impolite, but he didn’t care. _Merlin, pull the other one, why don’t you._ "Would you also happen to be interested in a bridge I’m selling?"

He received a full-blown smile for his cheek this time. It was utterly lovely, but didn’t quite meet the man’s cool eyes. Severus found it unnerving. "Call it professional curiosity."

"You don’t look like a Brewer," he hazarded. 

"And how should a proper Brewer look like, as per the standards of one—" the man leaned over to read his name tag, resting askew on the front of his apron, "—Severus Snape?" 

"Like someone who isn’t you," Severus snapped back. Lips firmed, he held the entrance to the register open. "Come behind the counter then, if you want to see."

The man remained silent while he performed the slicing method taught in schools, and then the crushing and filtering method he preferred. After ten minutes, the results lay in beakers, the indicators showing the amounts Severus expected to see. 

"Intriguing," the man said, and gestured towards his filter. "That looks very Muggle."

"I suppose," Severus murmured. 

He thankfully didn’t press the observation. "And you devised this on your own?"

"Third year. A way to cut costs. Necessity being the mother of invention, and all that."

"I see." The man tapped a finger on the table, his gaze suddenly boring into him. "Alex uses this as well?"

"He...has his own methods, I’m sure." Not that Severus would know. The man had yet to teach him anything, except maybe how to piss away money on the most asinine things. Uncomfortable with the line of questioning, he continued in a more professional tone while retreating towards the till, depositing the cost of the dung beetles and pocketing the rest, "Anything else I can do for you?”

Severus felt eyes on him and tried not to fidget. There was a distinct feeling that he was undergoing some sort of evaluation, but for what, he couldn’t say. The other man didn’t seem dangerous—merely nosy and curious. There was an unearthly quality to how handsome he was as well, his sky-blue eyes reminding him oddly enough of Dumbledore’s, though they looked nothing alike.

He hadn’t learnt his lesson yet about handsome men, he supposed. Fate must have been laughing pretty hard when he came out queer, but Severus had stopped keeping track of his ill luck ages ago. 

“I hear there’s a bridge for sale," the man eventually said, sounding playful. Severus couldn’t have stopped the small smile it drew from him if he tried. "Perhaps you can tell me more about it tomorrow."

"Perhaps," he prevaricated, though based on the look on the man’s face he might as well have said yes, noting how that polite little smile curved into a genuine, pleased one. 

As the stranger made to leave, Severus called in a hurry, "A name, sir? You have me at a disadvantage."

"Of course. Apologies for the lapse," he said, inclining his head. "My name is Thomas."

"Thomas," Severus repeated, trying it out on his tongue. "Tomorrow, then."

\---

“There’s a regular customer at the shop recently.”

Severus had kept his voice casual while he rolled a pair of white socks, but Lily looked up with great interest from the blanket she was folding. “He’s young," he continued, "but he talks about Alkar like they’re old friends.”

“How young?” Lily asked.

“Somewhere close to Lucius’s age, I think. Probably same as Cissy.”

She made a humming, thoughtful sound. When Severus threw the last pair of socks into the right hamper, she nudged a pile of shirts his way. “Older apprentice, maybe? Brewer?”

“Maybe,” he muttered non-committally. “He talks like they’re colleagues.”

“That _is_ odd.” Blankets done, she moved on to pillowcases. How a family of two adults and one tiny baby could use up so much clothing and bedding in one week, Severus didn’t know. But it felt like the load always doubled whenever he came over to help her with the laundry. “And he chooses to shop there?”

“That’s even odder. He buys a thing or two, but he mostly drops by to, um...”

“To...?” Lily prompted, when his indecision stretched to an uncomfortable silence.

“He makes conversation.” His brows furrowed as he was struck again by how strange it all was. “That’s really all he does. He makes a token purchase now and then, but he mostly just drops by to talk.”

Lily smiled. “Maybe he’s chatting you up.” At Severus’s disbelieving snort, she continued, “I’m serious. From what you said, it sounds like he might be interested in you.”

“Or he’s planning a robbery.”

“Come on. Alkar’s? There are better shops to rob from.”

“Given that much thought, have you?” Severus teased. 

“You won’t believe the criminal notions I entertain whenever Harry decides half an hour is sufficient nap time.” As the last pillowcase hit the hamper, she began grabbing from the reduced pile of shirts she’d foisted on him. “Handsome?”

“Yes. Very. It’s why this is all so suspicious.” He glared at the knowing grin blooming on Lily’s face. “You’re getting excited over nothing. People that handsome don’t just wander in to ‘chat up’ people like me.”

“I like your face.”

“You’re my friend. You damn well better like my face.” 

"Other people are allowed to like your face. Or your voice. Or your company." Folding done and hamper full, she grabbed the large basket by the handles and gave him a peck on the cheek on her way out. "You never believe me when I tell you how wonderful you are, anyway. Maybe you’ll believe this bloke."

\---

"Assuming that I heard you correctly," Thomas said, in between bites of the fish and chips they were sharing, "and you’re now banned from all fifteen respectable Potions apprenticeships in the entirety of the British Isles, how exactly do you plan on getting your license?"

It should look ridiculous, Thomas with all the fairness of a Gladrags model, eating streetfare with him in the dingiest shop in Leicester. But the man looked quite comfortable with the whole thing, so Severus gave a mental shrug and chose to enjoy moments like this one. "I can take the exam if I fulfil all the technical requirements," he replied after swallowing his mouthful. "Apprentice to Old Alkar for three years. That doesn’t amount to much since he hasn’t renewed his Proof of Competence in decades, but there’s an institute in Romania willing to overlook that if I put in the hours here, submit my scores, then take their practical. Six months training with them, a record of good performance, and they’ll advance me to a Recruit. Recruits get to try for a specialized license after eight months of field work, including Potions."

"The Care and Preservation of Dragons and Wyverns Institute?" At Severus’s nod, he continued, gesturing with the chip in his hand, "I’m rather certain they require a full year for that first part."

Severus bit his lower lip. Normally, he’d take the word of an institute representative over a shop customer, but Thomas had proved to be both well-informed and well-connected thus far. "I was told six months." 

Nearly two years in Romania...and that was on top of the three he needed to spend under Alkar’s employ. Severus’s spirit sank a little further.

"It’s never just six months," Thomas was still explaining. "It’s a year, and they’ll try to make you stay for much longer if you’re not careful. They’re rather desperate for Brewers over there, licensed or otherwise." 

"Then I’ll be careful." He dusted off his hands, declining when Thomas offered him the last remaining bits. "It won’t be as good as a sponsored introduction from the Society, but it’s the only remaining avenue I have."

"I can count...four, maybe five current Potions Mentors who aren’t Purebloods," Thomas said after a moment’s thought.

"Four," Severus confirmed. He let a wry smile curve his lips. "Rejection letters. Oddly enough, they care a great deal if you’re from Slytherin."

"Ah. Of course." Blue eyes warmed with sympathy. "Quite a game plan. Meanwhile, your peers will have attained their licenses in a third of that time."

Severus shrugged one shoulder. "Life isn’t fair."

"What I’d like to know," he said, wiping his hands and dropping the wrappers of their small meal into the shop bin, "is how a young man of your intellect managed to cause this pickle you’re in by royally pissing off every Pureblood connection you had from school."

"I have a specialized skillset." Severus smiled when that drew out a chuckle. "They gave me an ultimatum. I made my choice."

"Do you think you made the correct one, considering the difficulties you face now?"

"Depends on what you consider ‘correct’. I don’t regret it, if that’s what you mean."

Thomas gave a thoughtful hum. "And the nature of this ultimatum?"

Severus had been on the verge of answering, when a thought struck him and he gave a frustrated glare at the other man instead. "You know, this conversation started with me asking you about _your_ job."

The answering smile Thomas wore was unrepentant. "That will reveal itself in due time, I think. For now, I’m enjoying being another bloke off the street, as it were."

And that’s when this association would end, Severus guessed. There was likely a good reason the man was so dodgy about the details of his life—his primary guesses at the moment were a prominent Ministry official or one of the wealthier, more glamorous titled Purebloods that the Prophet liked to celebrate. He certainly looked the part.

One thing Severus was sure of was that he was unattainable. Part of him wished these visits would end sooner and spare himself the heartache—for he was sure his shrivelled heart was nudging itself in that direction, despite every other voice telling it not to. 

\---

"There’s apparently a charm for folding the freshly-laundered."

Lily cursed, loudly and with great emphasis. Severus’s heart swelled—she’d learnt that one from him. The flickering of the Floo’s green flames lent a menacing air to her irritated face. "You’d think they’d teach it at Hogwarts. Send it over?" 

Severus charmed a quill and parchment to duplicate the page, then sent it sailing through his fireplace.

"Where’d you get this from?" Lily asked after skimming.

"Some old textbooks." One of his discussions with Thomas had yielded a great wealth of knowledge regarding how Hogwarts’s education had been shaped throughout the years. Where the man had acquired the old textbooks, he didn’t say, but Severus was happy enough to ignore that part if he got to read them. Thomas purportedly had access to every major revision since seven centuries ago. The Hogwarts Library only kept up to three, and was barred from students. "It _had_ been part of the Charms curriculum, but they removed it in 1508 for ‘redundancy’."

"Wankers. They removed it assuming every magical household already knows about it, didn’t they?"

"Likely." 

"I should pick someone’s brain some time. Mary wouldn’t know either, I guess. Maybe Alice?" She made a moue of annoyance. "I don’t really have a good reason to visit the Longbottoms, though."

"Tell them you have a lead on the Dark Lord. Once you’re in, you know what to do."

"Har-bloody-har. I’ll think of something." He could hear her rolling the parchment through the connection. "Thanks. If you find any more, bring it when you come over this Sunday, will you?"

\---

That Sunday, his distraction was remarked upon when he sliced rather than diced and minced rather than chopped, and basically made a whole mess of Lily’s meal preparations. "Tell me what’s wrong," she demanded while taking over the chopping board.

Severus sighed, annoyed with himself. "Nothing. I’m being paranoid. You really should get a House Elf for all this, with the baby and all." 

"They creep me out," she said, with a shake of her head. "Not how they look or anything, just...the whole situation. You don’t feel the same?"

He gave a shrug. "Got used to them at Lucius’s, I guess."

Predictably, Lily’s lips firmed at the mere mention of Lucius’s name, but she’d lost the right to pick a fight about his continued association with him long ago. Severus just wished she’d get used to it the way he’d had to tolerate James’s presence now and then. Not to mention the rest of the so-called Marauders, who apparently had traipsing rights throughout the house whenever they pleased. James was easier to ignore on sheer frequency of contact, neither man enjoying the continued run-ins but willing to attempt some semblance of civility for Lily’s sake. Lupin often faded into the background anyway, and Pettigrew barely registered on his radar. Black, though…

He bit back the unconscious snarl starting to curl his lips and steered his thoughts away from the dispossessed Black heir. "What’s bothering you, then?" he heard Lily say, mooring him back to the present. "You’ve been off all afternoon."

The reason for his unease returned to the forefront of his mind. He rested his chin on his folded arms, watching her from the kitchen table. "Last Thursday, Old Alkar returned while Thomas was there. First time I saw them in the same room." During his pause, Lily made a sound for him to continue. He took his time, mentally reviewing the exchange. "It sounds foolish, but Old Alkar seemed a little afraid of him."

"In a ‘give me my money!’ way, or…?"

"No...like Thomas was an explosive that needed careful handling, or some such."

The slicing paused. Lily threw him an anxious look. "Severus...are you _sure_ he’s not—"

“He’s not Marked,” he replied quickly. “I’ve seen both his arms. They’re bare.”

"All right," she said, though the worried look remained. After a while, the slicing resumed. She broke the silence again with a more teasing note: “There’s really no reason to check the _right_ arm—”

“He has really nice arms.”

“Mm. I bet.” The smile she wore was radiant, but brief. Severus could see his own disquiet echoed on her face. "What did the old codger say, after?"

He released a short, frustrated sigh. "Didn’t. Just left. Or fled, more like. Yesterday, he wouldn’t hear my questions. Said since I’ve been keeping the shop afloat, I can keep doing business with whom I please, but not to bother him at all with it." 

"Sounds like some dodgy history there."

He uttered a non-committal sound. Asking Thomas himself was an option of course, but the man was like an oil-rubbed serpent on personal details. Little chance he’d find clarification with him.

"Do you get any bad feeling at all, when you two talk?" Lily asked.

"Not a whit. He’s been wonderful." 

"Wonderful, is it?" The teasing smile was back, though something serious lurked in her eyes. She tapped the edge of the knife on the cutting board and placed a hand on her hip. "So when are you introducing us?"

Severus’s brows furrowed. "Sorry?"

"Someone sweeps you off your feet, I want to know what he’s like."

"You’re being daft," he said, scowling, "and you’re making me regret this whole conversation."

Anything else Lily had been about to say was interrupted by a distressed cry and a baby on the verge of toppling over from the nearby bassinet. The mixing bowl shattered on the ground when Severus quickly stood to reach over, but Lily was closer, catching Harry around the waist before his head could hit the wooden floor.

"Merlin!" His heart lodged in his throat and refused to budge. Shaking his head, he righted the fallen chair and began picking up the pieces of the bowl he’d broken. Helping Lily out with Harry now and then, and occasionally having to watch over Draco, firmly convinced him he’d never survive having a child of his own. "He was asleep just a moment ago."

"Yeah, he’s quiet." Lily didn’t seem too concerned, checking the babe over and cuddling him when she saw no injuries. "Until he’s about to fall off or roll into the fireplace. Some warning’s better than none, I suppose."

After placing the ruins of the bowl back on the table, Severus gave her a flat stare. "House. Elf."

"No. My parents managed fine without one, and so will I."

A teasing smile curved a corner of Severus’s lips. "I suppose if you consider one of two a success…"

They shared a laugh, though Lily looked a bit guilty after. "I shouldn’t find that so funny. But Tuney wrote to me again recently, and I’m just...ugh. Oh, take him, will you? He wants his godfather, apparently."

Seventeen pounds of baby was carefully poured into Severus’s arms. He suffered through the initial bout of grabbing, and drooling, and drooly-grabbing, before Harry settled somewhat, mollified by a grip on Severus’s ear and a tiny fist in his mouth.

"I love that he likes you," Lily said with a contented grin. She leaned over and tapped Harry’s nose. "Just like Mummy does, yeah? You sweet little boy."

"Gwou-ay!" Harry squealed. 

"I know," she said, taking on a mock-lamenting tone, "but he doesn’t believe us."

"You’re both ridiculous," Severus groused, while bouncing Harry to the babe’s delight.


	2. Chapter 2

Severus occupied himself with the paltry new inventory, leaving Thomas alone to peruse his formal training request. He’d asked for the man’s thoughts on it earlier, expecting a quick skim and one off-hand advice or two, but Thomas had taken the letter, requested the entirety of his application, Hogwarts transcripts and all, and had pulled up a chair at the counter where he hadn’t moved for ten minutes. 

The focus his papers were being subjected to was flattering for the first few minutes, but became a little unnerving as it went on. Far be it for him to say no to free help, however. He had just finished noting down the hippogriff kidneys when he heard his name being called.

The other man’s expression lost some of its seriousness when Severus sat across from him. "First, I advise you to be less desperate in your letter."

Not the most favourable of starts. Severus felt the blush creeping up from his neck. "I’ll revise," he said. "What else?" 

"Don’t send your OWLs." He held his hand up when Severus opened his mouth to protest. "I know they requested both, but the disparity between this and your NEWTs looks suspect. Ready your OWLs if they follow up on it, but I doubt they’ll bother." He held the NEWTs transcript up, eyes gleaming. "Very impressive, by the way. ‘O’ in eight subjects barring Transfigurations...though considering the professor, not much of a surprise.”

The praise settled like a warm glow in his chest. “Not to disagree," he replied with a wry half-smile, "but I really did have some trouble with Transfigurations.”

"Ah." Thomas tapped a finger on the OWLs sheet. "I’m surprised you were allowed to take NEWT subjects with some of these scores. An ‘A’ in Potions seems beneath you."

The question hung in the air. Severus gave what he hoped was a casual shrug. "Had a rough Fifth Year. The Headmaster granted some leniency."

"Did he," Thomas said, in a tone that wasn’t really asking. "How benevolent. The nature of your difficulties…?"

"Not academic." It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked about his OWLs scores, and Severus still didn’t know how to properly encapsulate the utter nightmare that had been his Fifth Year. While it had almost been the metaphorical last straw, it was somewhat fortuitous that Black’s foiled attempt to feed him to Lupin had happened close to the end of term, as his performance had already been declining before then. The trade for his silence in exchange for some leeway with the professors via the Headmaster had been conducted smoothly, allowing him to pursue a few more NEWT subjects he wouldn’t have been allowed to at the time.

Thomas gave him a long look, but Severus couldn’t discern his expression. He sounded unconcerned enough when he said, "Better off not having to explain that, then. Everything else looks to be in order."

The tone had been inflectionless, but there was a quality to it that filled Severus with trepidation. "You seem...dissatisfied," he guessed, watching the man shuffle the papers into their rightful order.

Papers righted, Thomas placed the stack on the counter between them, and took some time in answering. "It’s about your letter."

"I’ll work on it—" 

"Apart from that," he interrupted, affording Severus with a curious stare. "Now, I understand it is your choice to make, but in the short time I’ve known you, you’ve demonstrated at least six methods of ingredient extraction, five brewing variations, and two crafted spells that aren’t present in any Potions academic canon. You’ve also chosen to exclude any mention of these, and I can’t fathom why."

He opened his mouth but couldn’t quite find the words at first, not sure he was hearing correctly. Mention his penny-pinching in his request for admission? "You mean...the dung beetles, and the snake skins, and—"

"Yes, yes, and the stirring, and the anemone leaves, and the rather unorthodox use of doxy powder, and so on. You go about them like they’re run-of-the-mill, but no one I’ve encountered brews quite like you do." 

That part, he was familiar with. It took two Potions classes in First Year before a classmate tattled on him for ‘doing things wrong’ when he brewed as he often did with his mum and skipped following the steps from the book. Slughorn hadn’t really cared one way or the other so long as the end result was a perfect potion. "Not worth bothering with on a training request, surely?"

Thomas leaned back on his chair, his expression one of disapproval. "I have to say, Severus, false modesty isn’t a good look on you."

"I’m not—" Severus drew in a breath and reined in his temper. "If they were noteworthy, Slughorn would have said so. All those other things, it’s nothing but cost-cutting, maximizing efficacy—" 

"It is innovation," Thomas interrupted, sounding impatient. "In a field that sorely needs it. So few people go into Potions, and fewer still think to question established practises. You don’t just experiment. You _play_. Or are we not mentioning how you spent fourteen days trying to turn Skele-Gro into fluorescent magenta, just so they’d match your bottle stoppers?"

His mouth twisted at being reminded of his recent failure. That one should have worked, and it would have looked bloody good on the shelves.

"And you highly overestimate Horace Slughorn’s grasp of Potions," Thomas continued. "The man’s good for OWLs, but he should be nowhere near NEWT-level students. His talents lie elsewhere."

"He’s all I’ve studied under," Severus said, disliking the inadequacy he felt. Anyone who’d gone through Hogwarts eventually realised Slughorn wasn’t all that into Potions, but to hear the man’s competence get so blatantly dismissed felt irreverent and vindicating all at once. 

"Rather highlights the pitfalls of the British magical education system, doesn’t it? Contrast it with our neighbours, and the picture becomes even bleaker." Thomas sighed. "Well. Conundrum answered, I suppose. I trust your revised letter will be longer?"

"I’ll try to work it in," Severus said, while retrieving his sheaf of papers, "Thank you, Thomas." The conversation had been brief, but it left him feeling raw—the man had a way of boring into things that had him stinging like he’d been slapped at times.

"My pleasure." Thomas said, with that familiar lovely smile. "If you can finish it by the end of the week, I’d like to have another look at it, if that’s fine with you."

\---

"End of the week" thankfully didn’t mean Friday afternoon, as Thomas was nowhere to be seen by then. Severus hadn’t been happy with his first two attempts at revision, but the third was looking promising. Needing a second set of eyes, he headed out to Godric Hollow. 

More out of habit than anything, he was past the gate, had run across the small lawn, stepped up to the door and landed four knocks before he realised there were several voices in the house. Rowdy, familiar, unwelcome voices.

He spun on his heel, took a few steps, wheeled around and miserably stood in front of the door again. Much as it pained him, he really did need to talk to Lily.

The door opened to a blast of warmth and the smell of roast and fresh-baked Yorkshire pudding. James Potter loomed at the entrance, his easy smile and the joyous glint in his eyes vanishing when he saw who was standing on his front porch. "Oh. Come in. I’ll go fetch Lily."

He waited until James was a good distance away before gingerly stepping through and closing the door behind him. 

The boisterous laughter coming from the living room to his left lessened with James’s absence. It stopped altogether after a short while, Severus’s mere presence casting a shadow on the merriment. He crossed his arms and stubbornly fixed his eyes on the ground, reminding himself he had as much right to be there as the rest of them.

"Evening, Snivelly," came Sirius Black’s arrogant drawl, cutting through the dampened mood. "See your honker’s as ginormous as ever."

Black’s voice was all that was needed to throw him back to the nondescript walls of Hogwarts’s hallways, to the creeping realisation that he’d been cornered somewhere alone and he was being hunted. A snarl was pulling on Severus’s lips before he had conscious thought of it. "Go suck your brother’s prick, Black, I hear that’s a thing in your family—"

"Circe’s tits, Sev!" Lily came running over from across the hall, hands covered in flour. At her heels was James, looking bewildered while carrying a six-pack and a plate of appetisers. "Come inside and shut up." 

Severus unfolded his arms, ignoring how Lupin sounded like he was working overtime to keep Black from going ballistic on the sofa, letting Lily drag him by the hand towards the kitchen. "James, we talked about this," she told her husband as they passed.

The door to the kitchen prevented Severus from seeing James’s expression, but his reaction painted a clear enough picture. "We _both_ heard that, yeah? He was kidding, love!" Then, a bit farther, "Sirius, mate, come on..."

"The bloody hell did _I_ do?!" came Sirius’s enraged reply. "Why do we have to do this at your house anyway?"

"He’s the only one of us who has one," Remus chimed in.

"—fucking Snivellus prancing in whenever he likes—"

A swift but weak silencing charm from Lily’s wand prevented the rest of the inane chatter from filtering through. She turned to face him fully, eyes narrowed in that specific way that told Severus she couldn’t decide between fondness and frustration. "For future reference, if someone pulls your pigtails, you don’t respond by lobbing a spiked bludger at the other person’s skull."

"Black pulls anything of mine, I’ll chop his bollocks off," Severus muttered, his anger slow to dissipate even in Lily’s presence.

She gave a tired sigh. Over three years, and it still never failed to make him feel guilty. It was always after the fact that he remembered picking a fight with the Marauders often meant ruining Lily’s day in some fashion as well. "If you must. Just not on the carpet, maybe." 

Stepping farther into the kitchen, she dusted off her hands and patted the flour from her shirt front. Severus spotted a crock pot in the oven and a tray of finger foods on the island counter. Her look was askance when she said, "You realise your behaviour just then is why James has a hard time about the whole queer thing, don’t you? Partly, anyway."

Severus’s brows furrowed. "Because I insult Black?" he asked, incredulous. While he normally couldn’t give a rat’s arse what James thought, this was a point of contention he wished would simply go away. For some reason unknown to him, James bloody Potter, outside of any available evidence, seemed to have interpreted "queer" as "pretending to like boys so I can steal your wife".

"Your choice of insults sometimes," Lily clarified with a pointed look.

It took Severus a while to see where the problem was, enough time for her to check on the oven and get something from the fridge. A moment later, he bit his lower lip and said, contrite, "It’s more for the incest part when it’s Black, though."

"Not the first thing that registers with us mere mortals, I’m afraid." There was a loud, alarming crash from outside, followed by a brief bout of silence. Then a chorus of boyish cheers. Lily winced. "Hope that wasn’t the new telly."

"Is it Wazzocks Day at your house or something?" Severus asked, frowning at the kitchen door. The laughter had subsided enough for the noise to be filtered by the spell again.

"Friday game night."

He looked back at Lily, an eyebrow raised. "Friday fucking wot?" 

"_I don’t know_. I don’t even know if James knows. Think it’s just an excuse to get the boys together." She saw his expression and made a face of her own. "I know what you’re thinking—"

"Not thinking anything about how much more of a lad your husband can be—"

"—but James really doesn’t see the others that often, and it’s two days per month. You’ll live." She began tugging on a pair of oven mitts after the egg timer went off. "Wait upstairs in Harry’s room, will you, while I finish up here? Bath time for him."

The multitude of unwashed dishes and cutlery alongside ingredients left exposed to the elements stood out to him. There was an entire mess at the chopping board—likely James’s handiwork. The man never could do a proper mince. "Need help?"

"Almost done. Start the bath, maybe? Thanks."

\---

He’d finished filling the tub and gathered Harry’s submersible toys when Lily arrived from downstairs. "Remus is part-timing at the Wandmakers Association."

Her subtlety needed work, Severus thought uncharitably. While the odd mention of the werewolf had petered out after he’d met Thomas, it had yet to go away completely. "I couldn’t care less about what Lupin’s been up to."

"He’s a pretty decent bloke, once you get to know him. So what brings you here?" 

Ten minutes later saw them standing in Harry’s nursery, Lily focused on Severus’s revision while he waited with a naked, sleepy baby settled against his chest and nibbling on his collar. "Reads differently from the first one," she remarked. "I do like this one better, though. Makes me more curious about you."

"That’s the final draft, then," Severus said, letting some of his relief show through. Harry and the letter changed hands. Remembering Thomas’s comments, he asked, "Did the previous version seem desperate to you?"

"Wee bit," she replied, with no hesitation at all.

"Lily!" She looked up, eyes wide. "You’re supposed to tell me these things."

"Thought you meant for it to be that way," she said with a guilty grimace. She laughed when he grumbled while following them to the bathroom. "Sorry! Don’t pout. No desperation in that one though, I promise. You sending it over, then?"

He nodded, renewing the warming charm and kneeling beside her. "End of the year, so I’m not bottom of the pile once I’m done at Alkar’s. It’s an eight to twelve month review window."

"Can’t imagine not seeing you twice a week." Harry was fully awake now and kicked and pouted throughout being lowered into the water. Severus distracted him with a swimming mermaid figurine while Lily lathered up a few potions. "Bad enough I don’t see you everyday."

Awkward silence settled between them, filled occasionally with Harry’s giggling and thrashing. They’d not really talked about him going off to Romania yet. It remained unspoken that they’d never been apart for more than a few weeks, one month at the most when Lily’s family went on vacation visiting relatives and skiing on the Alps. They were nine at the time. 

He hadn’t even told Lily that it was going to be six months longer than they first thought. "We’ll both be busy," he said instead, hoping it could convince him as well, "it’ll feel like nothing once it’s over."

Or he’d come back to having been replaced by Mary (or worse, fucking Lupin) as her best friend, Harry hating him, and James banning him from the house. 

Firming his lips, he forced his thoughts away from his petty fears. He knew, to his very core, that Lily would never do that to him—would never allow for any of those things to happen. But he also knew that life had a way of tearing people apart in the most unexpected ways. 

Harry chose that moment to break away from Lily’s tenuous grasp and slammed his soapy fists onto the slithering toys, causing a large splash to hit Severus in the chest. "And maybe the absence will make this monkey treat me better," he said, glaring when the little demon shrieked and giggled. 

"He’ll be two, approaching three when you get back," she said, sounding wistful.

_More like three and then some._ "He has, what? Three other godfathers, one godmother, and two sets of grandparents outside of his doting parents? Spoiled little thing won’t even miss me."

"What about his mum, then?" She gave him a brief look, and the expression she wore made Severus feel just as miserable. "You’ll write, yeah? 

"...I may be able to manage monthly visits," he found himself proposing. Money was already tight, and all his meagre savings from managing the shop was going to his cost of living fund, something that the training stipend wouldn’t be able to cover completely. But if he could work out using the Institute’s trainee labs for personal projects, he might be able to wing a few commissions…

"How about you stay there and I come over twice a month?" Lily said, drawing him back from his plotting. 

She looked wary, like she expected him to protest, putting a damper on his knee-jerk reaction to do just that. And truly, the mere thought of being able to see Lily twice a month was something he wanted so badly, he could cry. The Potters could easily afford it, but there was always that level of discomfort attached to having her spend that money on him—money that was mostly comprised of James’s inheritance. 

They’d had past arguments about it—Lily oft-times pointing out that refusing her help now that her money was mixed up with James’s was splitting hairs over stupid reasons, and Severus having no good argument against it other than personal pride, which she didn’t think much of. 

She’d always been generous, but he suspected part of her insistence to pay for him when she could had some amount of guilt attached to it. He’d not mentioned to her what he’d lost when he alienated his Housemates—had actively tried to keep that knowledge from her, even—but some parts were easily observable, and no doubt she’d managed to draw even more conclusions having married into a Pureblood family with a Potions empire. The Potters hadn’t been part of the Apprentice program in centuries, but someone would have paid them a token visit nonetheless.

"We’ve been sharing since we were children! I can buy you ice cream when we were ten, but I can’t buy you a broom now?" she’d once said, after an argument had developed between them when they passed by a Quidditch shop and his eyes had lingered on a Celestial 2000 with an emerald-green trail. "So what, it’s the scale? That’s silly."

"Yes! It’s the scale, and the circumstance, and oh Merlin, Lily, I don’t want to argue about this—"

"I don’t want to argue at all." She’d already been dragging him by the hand, back towards the shop front. "So just let me do this for you, yeah?"

So he’d brought home the most expensive broom on the market that day, had to convince his landlord he didn’t steal it, and let it sit gathering cobwebs near the door because he was too afraid he’d dent it if he so much as took a five minute drift on the thing. 

"For my own sanity, if not yours," she continued, guessing at the root of his silence. "It’s _every other week_, surely you’re not—"

"I didn’t say no, did I?" he snapped, and gentled his voice when Lily continued looking hopeful. "Every other week sounds great, actually. Bring this monkey with you, even."

Her face brightened like a Christmas tree. She turned her delighted gaze at the baby in the tub, who’d been watching them raptly with his mouth wide open. "Hear that, sweetheart? Mummy can escape to Romania with you while Daddy’s having his Friday whatsits. Can you say ‘lucky’? Say ‘lucky’ for Mummy!"

Harry clapped. "Hweeih!"

"Close enough," Severus remarked, smirking. 

They spoke of less serious matters as they finished rinsing Harry and cleaning up the tub. Back in the nursery, while Severus struggled to pull one sock onto one wiggly little foot (with Harry giggling all the while, and squealing whenever the sock would miss its target and his little toes would land on Severus’s nose), he heard Lily tell him to try to stay still and felt warm fingers on his right ear. 

He inspected her handiwork by feel first, then on a mirror, once Harry had both socks on and was left to the mercies of his mother, armed with baby powder and a koala onesie. 

"Lily," he said, a little on edge after the conversation earlier. The ear cuff glittered in the indoor lighting, shaped like a serpent and winding around the shell of his outer ear to end in a tight curl around a bright red gem. “What did I say about—“

“I made it,” she said, swift to interrupt. “Just wear it. Merlin. Why does everything have to be a battle with you?”

On closer inspection, the piece did have a level of crudeness to it that wouldn’t have been in a shop-bought item. Not an expensive one, anyway. “Thanks," he muttered, and allowed himself to admire it for a moment before turning away from the mirror.

“You’re welcome.” She tucked his hair behind his right ear and uttered a happy little sound. “Knew it would suit.”

"Why this colour?" he asked, helping her prepare Harry for bed. 

"It’s your birthstone."

He frowned. "I have a birthstone?"

"Everyone has a birthstone," she said, laughing. "You ninny."

"Is this more of that astrology nonsense?"

"It’s pretty nonsense, so shut it." 

He’d just been replacing the bedding on the crib when the door opened. James stood there, arm braced on the wooden frame, looking flushed and tight-jawed. 

After a tense pause, he said, "There is a silencing spell in the kitchen." His hard stare moved from Severus to Lily. "And another in my own child’s nursery."

"I know," she said, with a forced calmness that sounded unnatural to Severus’s ears. "I put them there."

James took one deep breath, then two. "Lily, can we talk for a mo’?"

"Sure."

They waited until James’s footsteps faded into the direction of the master bedroom. Lily spoke first, hoisting Harry up in her arms and offering him up. "Wait for me downstairs, I packed something for you. Take Harry for a bit." She bit her lower lip, looking uncertain. "Um...if it gets loud—"

"Lily—"

She shook her head. "It’s fine. This isn’t—it’s been brewing for a while, that’s all." Grabbing her wand to cancel the silencing charms and tossing him a towel, she said, "His head’s still a bit damp, can you—thanks."

\---

To their credit, the couple hadn’t started fighting in earnest until fifteen minutes in. Harry’s hair was long dried, one tiny fist jammed into his mouth, the other curled around a clump of Severus’s hair. 

He couldn’t make out any words from where he stood, but he kept an ear out for anything that sounded remotely like what the fights in his house sounded like. As the voices got louder and more angry, little Harry’s face was starting to scrunch up in distress. When he uttered a pathetic whine, Severus drew out his wand and cast a modified Muffliato on the baby’s ears, turning the angry voices from upstairs into low vibrancy buzzing.

"There." Harry’s eyes widened, the distressed look fleeing from his face to be replaced by growing interest and delight. He took his fist out of his mouth and batted at the air beside his ear, trailing saliva as he did so.

Severus smiled despite himself. "Don’t you lose that," he whispered, tracing the joyful smile on small lips with a gentle finger. "Don’t be like me."

He was distracting Harry further with a pair of dancing butterflies, when James stomped down the stairs wearing a stormy expression, grabbed his broom from the hallway rack, and slammed the door on his way out.

Harry wouldn’t have heard any of that, but he saw it well enough. Lily came downstairs to his heartfelt howls, unappeased by any attempts from Severus to distract or cajole. 

While she was gentle when she took Harry from him, he could sense her anger as easily as he saw James’s. Simmering and more tightly-contained, but no less furious. "Caught part of his dad’s tantrum, did he?" she said, affecting a light tone. It sounded too forced and fell flat in the quiet room.

And while she made it seem as if the cause of the fight had been about a multitude of things, Severus could sense some of that anger was directed at him.

He cancelled the Muffliato so Harry could have the comfort of his mother’s voice. “You know why we’ll never get along,” he said, careful.

The corners of her eyes tightened. “Neither of you even try.”

“I _do_. That’s why I’m bloody here, helping potty train your son.”

“Try harder.”

He took a deep breath, reminding himself that Lily had just come out of a huge argument and was still primed for more of the same. 

“I’m not forcing you to do anything," she said into the heavy silence, some of that broiling anger draining out. "I’m just tired of having to tiptoe around both of you in my own house.”

“I know.”

“And before you sulk, I get on James’s case about it, too.” She rubbed Harry’s back, his hiccups starting to abate. He looked knackered, slumped on her shoulder like that and barely moving. “Can’t count the number of times—he just makes me so mad, when he starts in on—” she cut herself off, biting her lower lip and shaking her head. 

With one hand, she opened the fridge, took out a plastic container and gestured for Severus to take it. "Eccles cakes, but there’s some roast and pudding from supper. Roast’s a bit bland, sorry. Getting better though, I think."

He was certain the cakes were his mum’s recipe, and Lily only ever baked them for him. The gesture never failed to warm him, but he couldn’t eat the damn things without thinking back to his childhood, good and bad memories rolling against each other. 

Lily once admitted to remembering only happier times of him and his mum with those cakes. He wished he did, too.

“I can’t promise anything,” he mumbled, taking the container. 

“Not asking for a promise."

Severus exhaled and gave a tight nod. The hug she pulled him into lingered on his mind well after he’d lost sight of the house. 

\---

By the time he reached the shop for a quick check on his cauldrons, it was approaching nine in the evening. He could spot a note on the till—he didn’t have to read it to know Old Alkar had been by to empty it again. Sighing, he deposited some of his own change so he wouldn’t have to worry about it in the morning. That man always added more to the workload rather than helped whenever he dropped by.

He returned to his flat, but found he couldn’t rest, tossing and turning well into the night. Giving up by 2 a.m., he dressed again and returned to the shop’s lab to start a new batch of Pepperups.

Hours later, Severus sat near the till, nibbling on a piece of roast and reading the day’s paper, having opened the shop to another Saturday morning of half-stocked shelves and no customers. He’d debated just closing up on weekends, but they did get some business occasionally when the nearby establishments did their restocking for the following week. 

It was approaching that time when Thomas dropped by, bright-eyed and dressed to the nines. Hat, gloves, pocketwatch, and all. "Bit early for us, but I’m afraid I can’t stay long," he said. "Have you something to show me?"

"Meeting of some sort?" Severus handed over the revised application, and tried very hard not to be flattered that Thomas would make some time for him on what appeared to be a busy day for the man.

"Of some sort," was the reply he got, Thomas’s eyes still on the letter and a brief, playful smile on his lips. After a moment’s read, he nodded with approval. "Yes, this looks much improved. I’d say you’re ready to send this in."

One worry off his mind, at least. "I appreciate the help," Severus said, reaching for the papers. 

"Would you like me to submit this for you?"

"There’s no need. The representative’s just a few blocks from—"

"I meant in person."

He drew his hand back like a cobra had just snapped at it. "What? "

"I assure you it’s no trouble," Thomas continued placidly, as if he’d said the most normal thing in the world. "And it’s on the way."

He couldn’t help but stare. "’On the way’," he repeated, wary. "To your ‘of a sort’ meeting."

"Two weeks. I’ve a few things to do across Europe, starting—well. A while ago," he said with a wry smile after checking his watch. He drew his sleeve back and let Severus catch a glimpse of the clock face—the long hand was shaking and the emboldened "you told them not to be late, yet here you are" glowed against a black backdrop. "Not like they can start without me, so it’s fine. The Institute’s close enough to one of the locations I’m headed that I can spare a few hours to swing by."

Severus was surprised by how tempted he was. It was Thomas’s confident way of speaking, he supposed, the way he could make Severus feel like bureaucracy didn’t exist and one could simply get things done by sheer willpower alone. "I can do my own submitting, thank you."

"Severus..." Thomas wore a gentle smile. He placed the sheaf of papers on the counter between them and cast a duplication spell, then pushed the original towards him. "It is your choice, of course. But it would please me if you let me do this for you."

"No one says that to me without wanting something in return," Severus said, frowning now, and firmly ignoring the inconvenient memory of Lily saying the same phrase just a year ago. She’d always been more the exception than the rule in his life. "And if it escaped your notice, I’ve little to give." 

"Self-deprecating way to see things," Thomas said. "I rather value our talks. Ah, well…" he waved his wand over the duplicate, the papers vanishing from sight. 

He’d sounded so disappointed that Severus had to curb the sudden need to apologise. "You only need to show up for that," he dryly said. "Since you’ve a long trip ahead of you, here…" he ducked behind the counter, taking the bespelled plastic container and a glass jar with fresh preservation spells. 

Midway through transferring half of the Eccles cakes, he noticed Thomas’s attention drifting towards his ear. He felt stupid for not realising why sooner, and tugged at the cuff self-consciously. 

“A token?” Thomas asked, eyes intently tracking his hand, the jewellery. “From a suitor, perhaps?”

Severus snorted. “Hilarious. I’ve a friend clever with her hands.” With some fiddling, he managed to get the thing off. “Tends to make me things now and then.”

“Ah.” His attention drifted towards what Severus was doing with the containers. "And this…?"

"Something for the road."

"From the same friend?"

There was such an odd note to Thomas’s question, that Severus stopped what he was doing and looked up at the man’s face. As soon as his eyes met a pair of blue ones, however, a radiating pain seized his temples, the pounding spreading rapidly across his head.

"Sorry," he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing against them. "Bit of a headache, suddenly."

For some inexplicable reason, he couldn’t stop thinking of his conversations with Lily the night before, as if someone had reached into his brain and dragged that memory up into the light. Even more puzzling still was the accompanying image of Horace Slughorn, looking...he wasn’t sure. Threatened? Horrified? It wasn’t an expression he could remember seeing on the man before, though he must have at one point.

It took a while for the pounding to ease off. Throughout it, Thomas was silent. When he was finally able to open his eyes again, the other man was looking down at his hands, tugging his gloves off. The blue eyes that had looked so warm earlier now lacked that bright, welcoming glint.

"You are simply full of surprises, aren’t you?" Thomas said, though he sounded more upset about it than complimentary. 

Severus wondered what he could have possibly said to offend him. Before he could give voice to the question, Thomas said with a softly exhaled sigh, "I’m not angry at you. Merely frustrated...if certain people were better at their tasks, you would be nowhere near a shop like this, in a town like this. And we might have met under very different circumstances, to our mutual benefit. Now, hold still." 

He barely had time to squawk when Thomas placed his palms on both sides of his head, cool fingers tilting his face up so their eyes would meet again. 

Barely a moment later, and the headache vanished, as did those hands.

A cold sensation ran up his spine. He licked his dry lips. "I’m not sure what just happened."

"It’s a long explanation, and I simply have no time today," Thomas said, with a hint of contrition. From within the pockets of his robes, he produced two pieces of paper, an inkwell, and a nondescript white quill. Three items were placed in front of Severus, with Thomas keeping one of the pages.

"A way for us to communicate," he explained. "Pardon the stains. You must use this ink, this pen, and this paper. A crude but working prototype, I’ve yet to find a way to eliminate the other two requirements and restrict everything to the paper surface, but it should be possible in theory."

Severus had worked with enough ingredients to suspect that the stains looked a lot like blood. Human blood, even, if he were a betting man. The ink was also a warmer shade of black that had him questioning its make as well. 

The quill looked safe enough. He picked it up, noting its similarity to the Hogwarts-issued quills, dipped it in the provided ink and drew a scribble across the top of the clear page. 

The mark faded after a few seconds. Thomas showed the page he’d kept—the scribble appeared there, in perfect recreation.

"That’s remarkable," Severus breathed out. 

That wry smile was back on Thomas’s lips. "Well, yes, I think so." He folded the page while the ink mark was vanishing again. "Wait for my note tonight. There are things we need to talk about."

They exchanged farewells. Severus managed to successfully fit in over fourteen pieces of cakes into the glass jar, with Thomas nabbing one before the lid was sealed.

"Excellent," he remarked, brushing the crumbs off his fingers before re-donning his glove. "My compliments to your friend."

Moments after the shop’s bell rang, signalling Thomas’s exit, Severus allowed a slow sigh to fill the silence. He already knew he’d be staying up as long as it took, simply waiting for ink to emerge out of a page like a lovelorn teenager. 

He spent the rest of the morning mentally reviewing the exchange, trying to make sense of what had happened when the headache began and when it faded with Thomas’s touch. But it was the image of Slughorn he found himself returning to the most, wishing he could remember what he’d said that had the professor looking back at him with such a disturbing expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to take longer to get the next chapter out so the little edits I had to make in this chapter doesn't happen again. Thank you for the lovely and insightful comments, I really appreciate it. Apologies if it takes me a while to get back to you. Much love for all the kudos, bookmarks, and silent readers as well.


	3. Chapter 3

When the note appeared, Severus didn’t think it was worth his three hours’ vigil and two cups of strong tea. Thomas’s looping, old-fashioned script laid out a name in the first line, the title of a book in the second, chapter numbers in the third, and instruction to write back once he’d finished reading in the last. 

He committed them to memory and wrote, _"Did you really just assign me homework?"_

The reply came a few seconds later: _"You misspelled ‘Thank you, Thomas’."_

Severus made a face and spitefully ignored the paper for the rest of the night in exchange for some much-needed sleep. The day after, he firecalled Lucius to ask after the author and if the manor’s library had a copy.

"What on earth for?" Lucius said, sounding irate. "I do have it, but you’re one of the last people I’d have thought would be interested in a Divinations text."

"It’s just research," Severus replied, frowning. It made sense with the title in retrospect, though why Thomas would send him after a Divinations book was beyond him.

"Into what?"

"Do you have the book or not?"

He had a brief glimpse of Lucius’s lips firming before his head vanished from the fireplace. The flames changed hues. "Come through. You can find it yourself."

He’d thought Lucius was just being difficult, but after stepping through the Floo and into the manor’s study, he saw that the man was seating himself in front of a tall stack of official-looking papers. "You know where the library is. You’re still good to watch Draco for the Ministry Gala, correct?" Lucius said, picking up his abandoned quill and not bothering to look up.

"Correct," he replied, taking in the unusually messy desk and the harangued look on his friend’s face. "Is this a bad time?"

Lucius scowled and made an irritated gesture with his quill towards the library door. 

There, he was greeted with the sight of Narcissa sorting through a desk full of scrolls. Her pleasant smile was a sight better than her husband’s face. "Severus. Good of you to visit. What brings you here?"

"A book, but I can find my own way." He skimmed through the scrolls closest to him—from what he could see, they were historical records related to Hogwarts’s Board of Governors. "You and Lucius seem preoccupied."

"Mm. Menial, but time-consuming, fact-checking." She released a weary breath and let the scroll in her hand drop to join the others. "The powers that be are a little upset with him, we think. Though what he could have done to incur his wrath, we couldn’t say. It’s not as if the past month has been eventful."

He made a noncomittal sound, recognising it for the lame reply that it was, but the last time he’d displayed some polite curiosity, Lucius had yelled at him. And the one occasion Narcissa had inadvertently shared information she apparently ought not to at the time, Lucius had yelled at him again. "I’ll be out of your hair, then, if that’s all right."

She smiled. "Of course. Let me know if you require assistance. Or one of the elves, if you prefer."

He spotted the book quickly enough, and it was, indeed, shelved within the tiny Divinations section. _Wizardkind and the Natural World: An Overview_ by Elias Woodroe was a thick volume, the pages yellowed but in good condition otherwise, as if it had never been opened outside of cursory inspections. 

Illustrations of things he expected in a Divinations text passed by as he flipped through random pages—tarot cards, planet alignments, palm lines. A lot of open eye drawings. Four chapters on spirit boards, and one section on auras.

_He’s having me on._ Either that or he’d have to do some severe reassessments of Thomas’s intelligence.

"Thinking of searching for your Inner Eye, are you?"

Narcissa stood close to his side, peering at the open book over his shoulder. She traced the palmistry illustration he’d paused on, then looked at her hand. "According to that, I should have died about four years ago."

"Around the time you got married, then?" he asked, and smirked when she gave him a playful slap on his arm. "Didn’t you take Divinations?"

"On a lark." She gave a one-shouldered shrug. "The girls and I just did our nails there."

"Was this the book you used?"

"Book?" She laughed. "It was all tea readings and stargazing." Her hands urged his to let her catch sight of the cover. "We do have this same edition in the Black Library, as I recall. Inch-thick dust all over. I don’t think anyone in my family’s ever read it."

He took her meaning—the Black Library was a curated collection, so if the title was there, then it must have some value. Severus gave his thanks, but before he could depart, she laid a hand on his arm. "Could you maybe stop by Draco’s room and look in on him?"

"Of course," he said, puzzled. "Though I’m sure the elves have him well in hand."

"For my peace of mind," she said, with a too-sweet smile. "And you might as well remind him what you look like."

He gave a mental sigh and nodded, taking the book with him and heading up via one of the doors that didn’t go through the study again. 

Passive-aggression aside, he supposed Narcissa’s over-protectiveness towards her only child was warranted—it had taken years for her to fall pregnant with the aid of medipersonnel, and it had been a difficult birth. Draco was unlikely to have a sibling. It didn’t help matters that the baby had contracted a rare illness within the second month, the symptoms subtle enough that it had seemed to be a minor cold. The House Elves had detected nothing out of the ordinary. 

While all that had resulted in the couple seeking the occasional human minder for Draco (often Severus), Narcissa had once confided in him that it had also been the convenient excuse Lucius needed.

"You should hear him rail about you," she had said, with laughter that sounded a little unkind, but as the target of it wasn’t Severus himself, he hadn’t minded. "Waiting for you to change your mind, and when you didn’t and took up that odd store job—oh, how he hated that. I do believe he missed you terribly." 

He heard a soft, looping lullaby from the spelled baby mobile when he entered the nursery. Little Draco Lucius Malfoy was sound asleep and in the grips of an involved dream, it seemed, from how the tiny limbs would move and twitch. Both parents were busy, so he might as well appease Narcissa and do his reading there while keeping an eye on her son. He made his way across the room and occupied one of the heavyset armchairs, laying the book on his lap and opening it to the table of contents.

The chapters Thomas had stated were close to the end: "Chapter VII: The Basics of Mind Magic"; "Chapter VIII: Occlumency: Beyond Defence"; and "Chapter IX: Legilimency: The Learned and the Natural".

Curiosity piqued despite the odd subject, Severus proceeded to the indicated page of the seventh chapter. 

\---

He didn’t know how long he’d been staring at nothing before he noticed small fingers desperately gripping the crib’s upper rail. 

"Stop that," he said with a scowl, when one hand slipped only to return with a vengeance on one of the bars. Draco’s pouting face was partially visible between the marble spindles. "There’s nothing for you out here other than a mile-long carpet and a bony lap."

In complete defiance of his good advice, Draco swung one foot up, slipped, and fell hard on his bum. Not a second sooner, the little brat was bawling his heart out and shedding fat, unhappy tears.

Quite unlike Harry, he found himself noting, while he sighed and stood. There was often some generous leeway before Harry would sink into a tantrum, but this one displayed no such grace period. "Shh, enough now, before you’re lassoed to your crib and I lose my visiting rights."

Draco didn’t stop crying until he’d walked all the way back to the armchair and seated himself with the baby on his lap, after which the abrupt cessation of noise was nearly deafening. "Professional manipulator, you are. Look at that," his thumb wiped off the remaining trails of tears from rosy cheeks, "not a single wet eye in sight."

He grabbed a hand towel and was still scrubbing at the flow of clear snot from the boy’s upper lip when he heard thumping steps. The door burst open, Lucius looking flushed like Severus had never seen, his platinum hair that was such a signature of the Malfoy name in disarray. 

They stared at each other for a tense second. Lucius took a survey of the room, before settling his gaze on his son. "I heard crying."

Severus wondered if the other man had ever got this much exercise in his entire life. Not just Narcissa then, though one would think it with the way Lucius would go on and on about how irrationally overprotective his wife got. "He’s fine."

"Are you sure?" Lucius took the few steps to close the distance when Severus offered up the baby. Draco was twisted this way and that, making him giggle while his worried father inspected him from all angles. 

Merlin, but he didn’t think he could get used to seeing Lucius so frazzled. It looked unnatural, like catching one’s professor in beach wear. "Tried to rock climb his way out of the crib and fell. Won’t be a Quidditch star any time soon, I gather."

Lucius afforded him a weak glare while carrying (or cuddling, more like, though he thought it wise not to mention) his son towards the chair opposite the one Severus was using. "Did you find what you were looking for?" he asked, canting his chin at the open book while taking a seat and letting Draco tug at his ascot. 

Severus hummed a lazy affirmative while giving Lucius a considering look. Oftentimes, he’d be more inclined to talk these things out with Lily, but she was already suspicious of Thomas. No need to stoke that fire without good cause. "Have you ever heard of Occlumency and Legilimency?"

"Sounds familiar, but I can’t say that I have. What of them?"

Severus gave a summation of what he’d read, after which Lucius raised a sceptical eyebrow. "’Mind magic’?" Lucius scoffed. "I’d laugh if you weren’t taking this so seriously."

"Pensieves exist," he pointed out, "memory extraction probably counts."

"We learn those in Advanced Charms." Lucius waved his hand dismissively. "Consider the source. There must be a reason those ‘disciplines’ are classified under Divinations."

"I’m aware, but…" he trailed off, letting his experience the prior day remain unsaid. He watched Lucius preoccupy himself with his son while he mentally weighed some pros and cons. There wasn’t much more he could say without mentioning Thomas, which brought to the fore why exactly he _wasn’t_ asking about Thomas in the first place. But the very thought of doing so felt, in a sense, like cheating—like he was playing some sort of game with the man, and asking other people was stepping outside some predetermined lines. 

But Lucius was discreet, and the odds of anything getting back to Thomas about this conversation seemed pretty slim. 

"Do you happen to know someone named Thomas?" he asked in the midst of Draco’s babbling, and saw Lucius’s expression turn sour. 

"You might as well ask me if I know anyone named John. I’m going to need more than that."

"Tall, pale, black hair, blue eyes, handsome. Likely rich. Possibly Pureblood."

Lucius gave him an odd look. "You realise you just described the Black brothers?"

"You Purebloods all look the same to me, I suppose," Severus bit back, annoyed. "Focus now."

Lucius breathed out a sigh for patience and thought. His ascot was looking more like a scarf now, completely unravelled and being slobbered on by his son. "Half-French, studio executive, heavy accent?"

Severus shook his head. "Queen’s English."

"Banker, about seventy-five, has a short beard. Cissy’s cousin, twice removed."

That prompted him to imagine Thomas with a beard, and he found he didn’t quite dislike the idea. "Younger. Clean shaven."

Lucius released an explosive sigh. "Short-haired, stylish, curious sort?"

"Might be him," Severus said, leaning forward. "Who—"

"Thomas Arthur Avery. He’s six. Likes nursery rhymes and drags around a black Horntail doll."

Severus scowled at the glint of mischief in Lucius’s eyes. "_Wanker_." 

"Language," Lucius admonished with a chuckle. "No, I don’t seem to know your Thomas. Is he the one making you paw through this nonsense? Maybe I should have a word with him about the value of people’s time."

Severus detected some seriousness to that last portion, so he did his best to divert the conversation to lighter things for the remainder of his stay. 

\---

At dusk, he spent goodness knew how long twirling the quill between thumb and forefinger, staring at the paper and mulling on how to begin. With a sigh, he went straight for the portion that was bothering him the most, hoping to get it out of the way. _"It says here you’re not supposed to use it without permission."_

The reply, when it came, appeared in a gradual, lazy manner. _"I have three books on Potions that says you’re supposed to slice dung beetles."_

Severus snorted at the utter cheek. "Not remotely the same, and you know it," he mumbled. 

Before he could write anything else, more words appeared. _"Do you feel you’re owed an apology?"_

He stared at the question until it vanished, his lips clamped shut and temper threatening to flare—something about the phrasing rankled. But without his presence, Severus could only rely on the written word, which lacked Thomas’s nuance and intonations. It was more difficult to tell when he was teasing or if he was speaking in that manner that made Severus feel like he was under a Muggle microscope. 

He twirled the quill once, twice—aware that if he waited too long, Thomas would assume he’d been offended, and wondering how truthful he really wanted to be with this man, who was not being truthful at all. "Lying by omission isn’t really lying," he’d told Lily once. Now, he wished he could take it back. 

Putting quill to paper, he wrote, _"I’ll settle for an explanation. This says I have the ability, which is preposterous. The book reads like hogwash, by the way."_

_"It absolutely is hogwash, except for the parts that aren’t. Woodroe was an acclaimed Legilimens. Anything else he had to say about Divinations could fertilize an entire field."_ A new line appeared, close on the heels of the vanishing text. _"I do hope you didn’t read outside of the chapters I gave. What a colossal waste of time."_

That one was definitely teasing, bringing to his mind Thomas’s charming smirk. He was also sure Thomas knew he’d read outside of those chapters, because he’d waxed poetic before about getting the scope of a book. And he loved to read, dammit. _"How was I to know? The other chapters were as fantastical as the three you gave."_

_"There’s nothing preposterous about you being a natural Legilimens. You’ve no idea how rare you are."_

Severus snorted. _"Can’t be that rare if two could meet by happen-stance like we did."_

_"Unlike you, my Legilimency is hard-won,"_ came the reply. _"I was not born with the talent, and I had no teachers. The only other living person that I know of who practises it resented my desire to develop the skill. But, like you, I found my own way."_

He was still staring at the first line when the text slowly began to fade. A line from the book stood out to him, a detail he had found intriguing at the time, but now felt portentous: "If the talent is not acquired through legacy, know, dear reader, that only the most powerful of magical folk are able to succeed in learning Legilimency."

_"Severus?"_

He swallowed, and tried to recall where Thomas left off. _"I’m here,"_ he wrote. _"Was it Slughorn?"_

The reply came after a pause this time, and the writing more deliberate. _"No. Though I regret you saw him in such a state. Horace and I had many a clash while I was in Hogwarts, though we have since come to an understanding."_

There it was again, that same casual reference to Slughorn like he talked about Alkar. People far older than Lucius, yet spoken of as peers. _"Were you in Hogwarts as an instructor? You couldn’t have studied there."_

_"Indeed?"_

Circe, but he needed to stop giving the man opportunities to be evasive. Sighing, he wrote anyway, _"You can’t be older than some of my friends, and they don’t remember you."_

_"I should hope not."_ There was an inordinately long wait before the next line appeared, right as Severus was contemplating writing again, _"I will let you figure that one out, little serpent. I’m afraid I must say my farewells soon while we relocate."_

His jaw dropped—he’d assumed all this time the man was alone and answering in his free time. _"I wasn’t aware you were out and about. Your replies come quickly."_

_"I happen to be listening to a very boring man plod through the most vapid story imaginable. I need his support for now, so I’m obligated. You’re providing a timely distraction."_ A sketch of an arrow pointing towards the left appeared, followed by: "I think the woman beside me is doing a crossword puzzle on the sly."

"Dear Merlin, where the hell are you?" Severus mumbled with a fond smile. _"Instead of merely listening to a boring man, you got to chat with a bored shop clerk instead. Lucky you. I’ll leave you to it, then."_

_"Very little about you is boring,"_ came the reply. _"We’ll talk again soon."_

Taking that for the dismissal it was, Severus secured ink, paper, and quill to where he couldn’t knock any of them off accidentally. He was contemplating his wallet and mulling on whether he wanted to bother with cooking anything for supper, when he noticed new ink emerging again from the paper.

_"And, Severus: never again without your permission. I swear it."_

It wasn’t an apology, but it was two sentences more than he had hoped for. He watched the words fade, wishing they didn’t vanish so quickly and left behind such a pristine surface, like they’d never been said in the first place.

\---

Lily knocked her elbow against his when she reached over to write on his notebook. Severus’s bed had a dip in the centre that got even more pronounced with the weight of two people lying down on it on their fronts, a large tome, and some writing paraphernalia. "No, you have to multiply this rune with a value that removes its reverse arcana first _before_ you find the differential, then multiply for the result." She scribbled as she spoke, correcting his previous attempt. "It’s like a reverse modulus. See?"

No, Severus did _not_ see. He’d had a good enough grasp of Advanced Arithmancy in Hogwarts, but the past few years of disuse had leached all that knowledge out of his brain. He skimmed Lily’s notes, flipped to a clean page, and pointed at the bottom half of the open page from Haveshaw’s _An Artisan’s Guide to Practical Arithmancy_. "Wait, I think I have it. Let’s do this next one, then." 

After a minute filled with the sounds of a pair of biros gliding across lined paper, they both showed their results. Severus scowled. "Why is mine still different from yours?"

She checked his work then underlined two operations and wrote beside them. "You keep forgetting this part." Severus felt her eyes on him while he bit the end of his pen and reviewed his work. "This is what you get for ignoring my calculus notes. Told you it makes Advanced Arithmancy easier."

"Does not," he mumbled, and tried not to pout. Back in Sixth Year, he’d turned his nose up at Lily’s comparison of Rune Sifting to the Euclidean Algorithm and had since been paying for his snobbery in increments. She reached over and flipped his notebook to another clean page.

"Do this third one," she said, and watched him write. "Why the sudden need for a refresher on ‘rithmancy, anyway?"

"I’m making a thing." He finished up the computation and nudged it towards her. "Bit larger in scope than I was expecting. Is this correct?"

"Yeah, that’s it." She placed her chin on her palm and gave him a knowing look. "And I’m not helping you with it, why?"

"Um…"

"Dark, is it?"

"Just a smidge." He rubbed the nape of his neck, embarrassed at having been caught out. "It’s the benign sort. You don’t have to worry."

"Keeping safe though, yeah?" At his nod, she tilted her chin towards the book again. "If you can do this fourth one, you’re good to go."

Comfortable silence settled between them while he worked. Halfway to finishing, he asked, "You’ll tell me when Black’s out of the house?"

She hummed an affirmative. "He mentioned staying with Peter before the weekend, so shouldn’t be long now." After a moment’s pause, she asked, "So, how’s Mister Mysterious? You’ve not mentioned him recently."

"He’s not been by."

"A month ago you wouldn’t shut up about him, now it’s like shucking oysters with you." She bumped her shoulder against his, making his "3" look like a "2" with a long tail. He threw her an annoyed glare and rewrote the number. "You hiding him from me?"

Severus sighed. "You keep thinking he’s something he’s not. He drops by. We talk. That’s it."

"At the very least, he’s your friend. Why can’t I meet him?"

He looked back at her to see if she was serious, and yes, it appeared she was. Giving her an incredulous look, he said, "Is this a thing we’re doing, then? ’Cause I’m sure Lucius—"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, don’t even start."

"—would be happy to entertain if you want to know him better. Or maybe I should firecall Mulciber? Make a day of it, sling a few slurs—"

"You can stop now," she said, giving him a flat stare. 

He huffed out a laugh and said, turning back to his calculations, "I’ll get around to it, just...let me figure things out a bit, yeah? Don’t even know much about him yet."

"All right." Another intentional bump made his "1" look like a demented "L". " "Sorry."

He responded with a bump of his own, crossed out the last line and rewrote everything from the last rune negation. 

Lily left behind a generous portion of pork pie, which he was still working through when he returned to his experiment at the shop’s lab. The distillation results were waiting for him. Surveying the results, he was glad he pre-empted her curiosity when he did. The paper itself wasn’t very interesting, though it was more parchment than paper considering the amount of animal ingredients in there—what _was_ interesting was the solution used to size it. Half of the ingredients were innocuous enough, but the other half...

"Giant’s blood," he murmured, going from flask to flask, noting each colour and pattern and comparing them to his ingredients guide, "chimaera eyes, rafflesia extract, Veela skin, Caucasus viper tooth…"

Two illegal, three heavily regulated. Reverse-engineering the paper surface was out of the question. He was limited to working with existing samples, which meant cutting off more of Thomas’s paper and hoping the other man didn’t notice.

His earlier attempt at dismantling revealed a multidisciplinary creation, containing spellcraft, potions, transfiguration, and complex runework binding ink, quill, and paper together. Preliminary analyses of the ink and quill revealed two layers of charm work and little else—the bulk of the enchantment was on the writing surface. 

Three days later, he was in the process of docking off another millimetre from the bottom edge, when ink emerged on the surface, startling him into dropping his scissors. The writing looked vertically cramped and was a bit hard to read

_"Severus, you need to stop snipping away at the paper. It’s distorting things on my end."_

_Bugger_. Quickly grabbing quill and ink, he wrote, _"Sorry. I didn’t realise."_

His words hadn’t even faded when Thomas’s script appeared again. It was a humbling experience, sensing another man’s annoyance in real time through writing. _"The pages are echoes of each other, so if one’s dimensions change, the echo stretches or shrinks. It took me a while to work out what the hell was happening. Are you using it for anything or were you just bored?"_

Yes, definitely annoyed. He could almost feel the bite of the words through the page. _"I have a working theory on how to eliminate the ink and quill requirement,"_ he replied, while trying not to feel like a chastened schoolboy. _"I need samples to test."_

A moment wherein Severus steeped in his own anxiety passed. He had been so sure Thomas wouldn’t mind too terribly—had been so free of himself, his thoughts, his time in the short period Severus had known him. 

_I overstepped._ He knew the axe would fall one day—that Thomas would have his fill of whimsy and wander off, probably to throw his charm at some other unsuspecting shop keeper or whatever it was the man did for entertainment—but that it would be of his own doing hadn’t even crossed his mind.

When Thomas’s reply arrived, it was with the same lackadaisical speed he often employed. _"I knew you’d be curious about the paper, but I obviously underestimated how much. Use as much as you like. I can provide you with more when I return."_

Severus released the breath he hadn’t realised had frozen in his lungs. 

_"After today, forego writing until I can give you a replacement, however,"_ came the follow-up message. _"The distortion is giving me a headache."_

_"Understood."_ He cast a glance at the worktable and frowned, writing further, _"I hadn’t been planning on getting more than a third, but I think I’ll have to use up most of it."_

_"It’s yours. Explain to me your theory, then."_

It took the better part of fifteen minutes for him to relay what he had planned—trapping an initial volume of ink in between the sizing and the paper, and reconfiguring the runework so that the sizing became reactive with normal pressure rather than proactive with specialised writing implements. More runework to ensure that the sizing didn’t release ink if no ink was added on the surface, and spellwork to transfer added ink from the surface to the depleted ink below.

_"That’s the gist. I’m still trying to work out how to deal with excessive or reduced ink amounts, but some form of conversion might be the key."_

_"That is excellent, and rather perfect for my needs. The conversion issue should be solved in the scale of a book, wouldn’t you say?"_

He took some time to mull over the suggestion. _"Yes, if resource distribution is across multiple pages, that would make things much easier. You were planning on using this in book format?"_

_"A sentimental token from my younger days. But for practical use as a method of communication between two parties, perhaps a few stray pages hidden in a simple notebook would be ideal. More to consider."_

_"Blank page inserts inside actual books might be better if it needs to be discreet. Few will think to write on it."_

_"Indeed."_ Below that, Thomas wrote, _"I must admit, your solution would never have occurred to me. What inspired you?"_

_"There are Muggle devices that mimic such an effect."_

_"You keep up with Muggle technology?"_

Severus bit his lower lip, quill hovering a few inches from the paper. Thomas had always seemed hyperaware whenever he employed Muggle methods, for some reason—always pointing them out once, though never mentioning them again after. 

He must have hesitated too long, as Thomas wrote again long after his words had vanished. _"That is wise."_

Relief coursed through him upon reading the sentence. _"Novel of you to say. No one in Slytherin thought so,"_ he wrote, feeling the heavy weight of memories behind the words. First Year had been rough, but it could have been much worse if he hadn’t caught on to that fact rather quickly. While Severus had mixed feelings about his Muggle heritage, he’d always been fascinated with Muggle ingenuity. 

_"Such short-sightedness is endemic to Wizarding Britain. Don’t let it kill your curiosity."_

The words tickled loose the small suspicion he’d been harbouring since the first time he’d talked extensively with the man. Little asides and jibes that weren’t much in isolation, but when gathered together painted a telling picture. _"You don’t think much of British magical folk, do you?"_

There was a short pause before Thomas replied, long enough for Severus to wonder if he’d hit on something sensitive. _"I wouldn’t have put it that way, but on further speculation, I suppose you’re correct. As a people, we’re all bloody lazy, among other things,"_ came the rather packed response. _"I’ve a lot of opinions on the matter, but a scrap of paper’s not the best vessel for this conversation."_

_"Fair enough,"_ Severus replied, wishing he didn’t have to wait several more days before he could see him again. _"I’ll be seeing you next week?"_

_"Of course. Pleasant dreams tonight, Severus."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I’m just gonna go add that Slow Burn tag now. 
> 
> Thank you for the lovely and insightful comments, I really appreciate it. Apologies if it takes me a while to get back to you. Much love for all the kudos, bookmarks, and silent readers as well.

**Author's Note:**

> * Will change the rating if I have the energy to write something more explicit in later chapters.
> 
> * I play fast and loose with canon info here, sorry. 
> 
> * This is a bit of a slow burn but not enough to warrant the tag, I think. 
> 
> * I'm a slow writer in general, so apologies in advance for the length of time between chapters.


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